Says Flynn: “It’s about managing the public domain experience for all.”

Some don’t see walking tour groups as an issue at all. “They stop outside the shop for a few minutes to talk about the area, and then head off,” says Mark Haybyrne, who runs the Jam Art Factory in Temple Bar.

They’re good for Dublin, he says. “People get more into what Dublin has to offer and we might see them come back in the future if the history and culture of Dublin gets under their skin.”

Free Tours

The big game-changer for group size was the proliferation of “so-called free tours”, says Tommy Graham, founder of Historical Walking Tours of Dublin, which has been running since 1986.

The issue, he says, is that free walking tours encourage tips. So the pay of the guide depends on how many people are in the group. “We’re old-fashioned. We charge a rate and pay a rate,” says Graham.

Historical Walking Tours of Dublin caps its groups at 25 people. If numbers go over, they add a second or third guide to “pick up the slack”, says Graham. There are always a few walk-ons, but online booking makes numbers easy-ish to predict.

Pat Liddy of Pat Liddy’s Walking Tours would also be concerned about the potential for over-regulation, he says. But he thinks there should be some cap on numbers in groups.

“I want a free market, but the standards are low. That’s the regulation I want, so the visitor gets the best experience,” he says.

“I have no problem with free walking tours, except that they carry too many people. […] The guide has to maximize tips, that’s why they take a larger number of people,” he says.

Peter Gormley, of Yellow Umbrella Tours, a free walking tour company, says they always try their best not to block the footpath, and to cap groups at 25 people.

“We know we’re sharing the city. It’s not perfect, but we try our best,” he says. A different demographic take free tours rather than the paid tours, too.

Spreading out attractions in the city could help, says Graham of Historical Walking Tours of Dublin.

That way there wouldn’t be several tour groups competing for access in one area of the city. “It’s reaching saturation point,” he says.

He has seen it elsewhere, he says – in places where they now have caps on the number of visitors who can come by at any one time.

Fáilte Ireland has a plan that touches on that, working to spread tourism more evenly throughout the city, by promoting and creating more visitor attractions in neighbourhoods that, right now, are less popular with tourists.

“It’s how it’s being marketed. They won’t go to north Dublin or the Docklands,” says Liddy, who had to cancel three new tours around the Docklands, north Dublin, and a whiskey route this year, because they failed to draw enough people.

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Anonymous commenter

at 10 October 2018 at 06:19

Perhaps the problem is footpaths that are too narrow and roads that are too wide. We don’t need to regulate people but perhaps we could regulate the number of cars on the road. How many people Mr Flynn could one fit on the space taken up by a car? It was for pedestrians the historical / touristy parts of town were built.

Anonymous commenter

at 10 October 2018 at 13:36

If only there was some way of making more space available for pedestrians in Dublin? Like maybe less traffic lanes for private cars and wider pavements? Dublin was a city built for pedestrians. Please please bring in something to restrict number of private cars and support Bus Connects to spread the bus routes throughout the city instead of congesting around our tourist centres. In tandem with more priority/crossing time for peds at most junctions.

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